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The intelligence behind content is not always obvious

I'm a stickler for correctness, and really have to hold myself back from alerting people about mechanical mistakes that appear in their posts and gaining an unwanted reputation as a grammar or spelling Nazi. Really, the only time people may feel thankful is if you catch it before it is published.

As a general rule, the most professional image for a business calls for correctly written content, but in terms of what actually is good for business there are always exceptions to the general rule.

In The Joys of Yinglish, (pp. 60-61) Leo Rosten includes a story about mistakes appearing in a sign. I've modified it somewhat, but kept the gist:
The sign of a store read: "EVRYTING FOR THE KICHEN" One of the men passing on the street walked in and told the owner, "There are three mistakes in the spelling on your sign." The owner calmly responded, "I know."
Surprised, the man asked, "If you know, why don't you correct it?"
The owner said, "Why should I? Each day, several people come in to tell me there are mistakes on the sign. Once they're in the store, at least half of them end up buying something."
So you see in this example, spelling errors prove good for business because they achieve a marketing objective: they get people in the store where they can actually make a purchase.

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This is not an exhaustive list. It was inspired by a quick look at a company profile on Google +. I used to follow that company but just stopped because it clearly is not paying attention to its own posts. It was guilty of all 3 of these:

1. You only post self-promotion and nothing else.2. You don't respond to any of the comments on your posts, including those with direct questions.3. You have one guy post "Thanks a lot, [profile name]" on each post, which just makes it look like you hired someone not very bright to comment.

In other words, #DoingItWrongIf you have any other signs of doing social media wrong, please write them in the comments!

On December 18, 2015, President Obama signed off on the 2,000 plus page omnibus budget bill, that amounted to spending $1.8 trillion in a combination of government allocation and tax breaks. Among the items packed into this gargantuan package is the Cybersecurity Act of 2015, also known as the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA). Set to stay in effect until September 30, 2025, it's a bill that will keep on giving for a decade. But not all regard it as a gift.
The bill had some vociferous opposition, most notably from the group called Fight for the Future. As late as December 16, the organization appealed for a veto on the law. Its campaign director, Evan Greer, declared that the bill is "a disingenuous attempt to quietly expand the U.S. government's surveillance programs, and it will inevitably lead to law enforcement agencies using the data they collect from companies through this program to investigate, prosecute, and incarcerate more people, deepening injusti…

I've written for a content mill known as Examiner.com for years. The pay was exceedingly low, amounting to somewhere around $100 a year, but I had a lot of freedom and so wrote some of what I would have included on one of my personal blogs (not this one) in any case.

However, it's time to cut the content mill out of my life because there is no way I will agree to its new terms. Note that point #2 absolves them from any formula for payment -- even that fraction of a penny per view that it used to use and that #7 amounts to selling (for no specified amount other than the possibility of "exposure") the use of your work forever after to Examiner.

“EXAMINERS” INDEPENDENT CONTRACTOR AGREEMENT AND LICENSE
Important - Read Carefully: This Examiners Independent Contractor Agreement and License (“Agreement”) is a legal agreement between you and AXS Digital Media Group, LLC d/b/a Examiner.com (“Examiner.com”) regarding the content you may choose to provide as an “Examiner,” as…